Chapter 2
Gotham is cold. It’s the time of year where people are wearing layers on layers upon clothing, hiding themselves from the cool air that snips at their skin.
He’s not really used to the cold, it makes him feel pathetic when he shivers, teeth chattering when he steps into the cool air.
He could be warm, at home. With his mother.
But the world had it out for him since the day he was born. Ten years of his life and he has never wanted to run from a place as much as he does right now.
Well, apart from when mother leaves him with his Grandfather. He knows it’s childish but he really prefers it when he is far away from the man—even if he tries to please him in anyway he can. It never is enough.
She’s told him stories—showed him pictures of the man, his father. He looks a little like him—he doesn’t think that, his mother does. His mother does, so he took it with a proud look. A compliment, praise. He clutches onto that.
Their skin isn’t the same, his father’s looks rough, even in the picture she had showed him. His darker skin is a contrast to his father’s light—yet tanned, skin.
He has his mothers eyes, wider, but green and one of his most salient features.
He doesn’t detest his father for being in his life—he knows mother hid him away, she didn’t want to, so he would never open his mouth about that.
But why is she sending him away?!
He was used to it! No matter how many times he caught her glaring daggers into her own father’s face, panicking when she realised the marks on Damian’s skin weren’t from falling when walking—but falling when ‘training’.
He was used to it. He could take anything if it meant his mother didn’t abandon him, pushing him away and into the house of his father-or rather, the very large mansion.
It wasn’t very impressive really, he’s seen larger—better. He lived in better, but he supposes it will do. It is a very large and well built mansion after all.
He clutches his bag tightly in his small fist, glaring up at the building that loomed over him. This was nothing.
He walked up to the first step, pausing in-front of it and turning slightly, watching as the driver took the suitcases out of the large trunk and placed them onto the floor.
The large door opened and he swung his head around, eye’s meeting a man of much older age. Sort of like his Grandfather—but his features were softer, weaker. But not at the same time, they were hardened lines on his jaw, wrinkles curling as his took in the boy in-front of him.
“Are you a servant?”
—
The cold air leaves, the warm air of the large room calming the panic he felt inside himself when realised he was cold.
There were four doors when he stepped inside, a large frame way at the front and two smaller, (yet still large) frames to the side.
“Shall I bring your things upstairs?”
He was acting like a servant—but his reaction meant he most likely wasn’r a servant.
Or maybe it was the word he has used, or the tone. Well, he wasn’t exactly soft toned.
“If you may.”
He replied, a little more politely. Or tried to say it politely ‘elegance was polite’. He supposes.
People who have power have no need to be unnecessarily rude. That’s what his mother had told him. She wasn’t a very gentle woman, but she wasn’t aggressive either. If he could find a word to explain his mother—he wouldn’t know which to use. She changed quicker than the seasons sometimes. But she always did care for him, her actions were often louder than her words.
He stepped forward, the steady wood creaking lowly underneath him as he went through the large doorway in-front of him, watching as the older man took two suitcases past him, dragging them up one of the two stairs that swirled upwards.
“Alfred! Let me.”
Another voice—he watched as an olive skinned man with neat yet messy black hair walked down from the top of the stairs, rushing forward to help the man.
“I’ve got it, Master Dick.”
“Well then I insist, Alfred.”
He said as the older man sighed, giving up one of the suitcases to the other man—Dick? What sort of…
“Your name is Dick?”
That came out a little more condescending than he actually meant it too. But the man seemed to be un-phased by this, instead looking at him up and down before smiling softly—too softly.
“Yes. You must be Damian, then.”
He narrowed his eyes up at the man, crossing his arms over his chest defensively before replying.
“I am.”
“Well then it’s nice to meet you.”
Oh.
Well, he expected something else—he doesn’t know what, but he guesses this wasn’t so bad.
Richard Grayson, the first “son” of his father, he grew up in the circus, which he should think is pathetic, maybe look down upon the older man for his upbringing, but he doesn’t feel the need to do that. Besides, acrobatics is a decent skill.
He ignores the man and crushes down any feeling apart from the one’s he was told to have deep down into the pits of his guy.
He walks up and past them, pointedly trying to steer away their eyes from him as they watched. He doesn’t care who watches him.
Alfred and Grayson bring up the two suitcases steadily behind him, he’s busy staring up at a painting of his father. He looks like him there, young and different. Martha Wayne and Thomas Wayne stand by the boy, each having a hand over his shoulders, smiling like fools who did not know what would become of them.
And they surely didn’t.
By the time he’s done looking up at the painting, Grayson is standing next to him, he’s too close for his own liking.
“He looks like you.”
“I know.”
His room is large, a large bed in the middle, a canopy as well as it’s soft looking sheets. The walls are wooden, the texture is soft snd rich. There’s a large window to the right of him, a bay window with white seating.
It was…nice.
He won’t voice that thought, though.